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A SONG OF THE GUNS 
IN FLANDERS 



BY 

GILBERT FRANKAU, R. F. A. 



A SONG OF THE GUNS 
IN FLANDERS 



BY 

GILBERT FRANKAU, R. F. A. 



NEW YORK 

FEDERAL PRINTING COMPANY 

1916 






Copyright, 1916 
Gilbert Frankau 



All rights reserved 



C^ 



'GI.A42802 4 



MAR '8 1916 



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4 ^rp HE Song of the Guns" was writ- 
J^ ten under what are probably the 
most remarkable conditions in 
which a poem has ever been composed. 
The author, who is now serving in 
Flanders, was present at the Battle of 
Loos and during a lull in the fighting — 
when the gunners who had been sleep- 
less for five nights were resting like 
tired dogs under their guns — he jotted 
down the main theme of the poem. 
After the battle the Artillery Brigade 
to which he was attached was ordered 
to Ypres and it was during the long 
trench warfare in this district, within 
sight of the ruined tower of Ypres 
Cathedral, that the poem was finally 
completed. The last three verses were 
written at midnight in Brigade Head- 
quarters with the German shells 
screaming over into the ruined town. 



A Song of the Guns in 
Flanders 

By gilbert FRANKAU, R.F.A. 



THE VOICE OF THE SLAVES 

We are the slaves of the guns, 
Serfs to the dominant things; 

Ours are the eyes and the ears, 

And the brains of their messagings. 



Ours are the hands that unleash 

The blind gods that raven by night, 
The lords of the terror at dawn 

When the landmarks are blotted from sight 
By the thick curdled churnings of smoke — 

When the lost trenches crumble and spout 
Into loud roaring fountains of flame; 

Till, their prison walls down, with a shout 
And a cheer, ordered line after line, 

Black specks on the barrage of gray 
That we lift — as they leap — to the clock. 

Our infantry storm to the fray. 

These are our masters, the slim 
Grim muzzles that irk in the pit; 

That chafe for the rushing of wheels. 
For the teams plunging madly to bit 

[5] 



As the gunners swing down to unkey, 

For the trails sweeping half-circle-right, 
For the six breech-blocks clashing as one 

To a target viewed clear on the sight — 
Gray masses the shells search and tear 

Into fragments that bunch as they run — 
For the hour of the red battle-harvest 

The dream of the slaves of the gun ! 

We have bartered our souls to the guns; 

Every fibre of body and brain 
Have we trained to them, chained to them. 
Serfs? 

Aye! but proud of the weight of our 
chain — 
Of our backs that are bowed to their work- 
ings, 

To hide them and guard and disguise — 
Of our ears that are deafened with service, 

Of hands that are scarred, and of eyes 
Grown hawklike with marking their prey — 

Of wings that are slashed as with swords 
When we hover, the turn of a blade 

From the death that is sweet to our lords. 



By the ears and the eyes and the brain, 
By the limbs and the hands and the wings, 

We are slaves to our masters the guns — 
But their slaves are the masters of kings! 

[6] 



Headquarters 

A league and a league from the trenches, 
from the traversed maze of the lines — 

Where daylong the sniper watches and day- 
long the bullet whines, 

And the cratered earth is in travail with 
mines and with countermines — 

Here, where haply some woman dreamed 
(are those her roses that bloom 

In the garden beyond the windows of my lit- 
tered working-room?), 

We have decked the map for our masters as 
a bride is decked for the groom. 

Here, on each numbered lettered square — 
cross-road and mound and wire, 

Loophole, redoubt and emplacement, are the 
targets their mouths desire; 

Gay with purples and browns and blues, have 
we traced them their arcs of fire. 

And ever the type-keys clatter ; and ever our 

keen wires bring 
Word from the watchers a-crouch below, 

word from the watchers a-wing; 
And ever we hear the distant growl of our 

hid guns thundering: 

[7] 



Hear it hardly, and turn again to our maps, 
where the trench-lines crawl, 

Red on the gray and each with a sign for the 
ranging shrapnel's fall — 

Snakes that our masters shall scotch at dawn, 
as is written here on the wall. 

For the weeks of our waiting draw to a close 
* * * There is scarcely a leaf 
astir, 

In the garden beyond my windows where the 
twilight shadows blurr 

The blaze of some woman's roses * * * 
"Bombardment orders, sir." 



[8] 



Gun -Teams 

Their rugs are sodden, their heads are down, 
their tails are turned to the storm, 
Would you know them, you that groomed 
them in the sleek fat days of peace — 
When the tiles rang to their pawings in the 
lighted stalls, and warm — 
Now the foul clay cakes on britching strap 
and clogs the quick-release? 

The blown rain stings, there is never a star, 
the tracks are rivers of slime. 
(You must harness-up by guesswork with 
a failing torch for light. 
Instep deep in unmade standings, for it's 
active-service time ; 
And our resting weeks are over, and we 
move the guns to-night.) 

The iron tyres slither, the traces sag; their 
blind hooVes stumble and slide; 
They are war-worn, they are weary, soaked 
with sweat and sopped with rain ; 
(You must hold them, you must help them, 
swing your lead and centre wide 
Where the greasy granite pave peters out 
to squelching drain.) 

[9] 



There is shrapnel bursting a mile in front on 
the road that the guns must take : 
(You are nervous, you are thoughtful, you 
are shifting in your seat, 
As you watch the ragged feathers flicker 
orange flame and break) 
But the teams are pulling steady down the 
battered village street. 

You have shod them cold, and their coats are 
long, and their bellies gray with the 
mud; 
They have done with gloss and polish, but 
the fighting heart's unbroke ; 
We, who saw them hobbling after us down 
white roads flecked with blood. 
Patient, wondering why we left them, till 
we lost them in the smoke: 

Who have felt them shiver between our 
knees, when the shells rain black from 
the skies ; 
When the bursting terrors find us and the 
lines stampede as one: 
Who have watched the pierced limbs quiver 
and the pain in stricken eyes, — 
Know the worth of humble servants, fool- 
ish — faithful to their guns! 

[10] 



Eyes in the Air 

Our guns are a league behind us, our target 
a mile below, 

And there's never a cloud to blind us from 
the haunts of our lurking foe — 

Sunk pit whence his shrapnel tore us, sup- 
port-trench crest-concealed. 

As clear as the charts before us, his ram- 
parts lie revealed. 

His panicked watchers spy us, a droning 
threat in the void, 

Their whistling shells outfly us — puff upon 
puff, deployed 

Across the green beneath us, across the flank- 
ing gray, 

In fume and fire to sheath us and balk us of 
our prey. 

Below, beyond, above her, 

Their iron web is spun ! 
Flicked but unsnared we hover, 

Edged planes against the sun : 
Eyes in the air above his lair. 

The hawks that guide the gun ! 

No word from earth may reach us, save 

white against the ground, 
The strips outspread to teach us whose ears 

are deaf to sound: 

[11] 



But down the winds that sear us, athwart our 
engine's shriek, 

We send — and know they hear us, the rang- 
ing guns we speak. 

Our visored eyeballs show us their answering 
pennant, broke 

Eight thousand feet below us, a whorl of 
flame stabbed smoke — 

The burst that hangs to guide us, while 
numbed gloved fingers tap 

From wireless key beside us the circles of 
the map. 

Line — target — short or over — 
Comes, plain as clock hands run. 

Word from the birds that hover, 
Unblinded, tail to sun — 

Word out of air to range them fair, 
From hawks that guide the gun ! 

Your flying shells have failed you, your land- 
ward guns are dumb; 

Since earth hath naught availed you, these 
skies be open! Come, 

Where, wild to meet and mate you, flame in 
their beaks for breath. 

Black doves! the white hawks wait you 
on the wind-tossed boughs of death. 

These boughs be cold without you, our hearts 
are hot for this, 
[12] 



Our wings shall beat about you, our scorch- 
ing breath shall kiss; 

Till, fraught with that we gave you, fulfilled 
of our desire. 

You bank — ^too late to save you from biting 
beaks of fire — 

Turn sideways from your lover, 
Shudder and swerve and run, 

Tilt ; stagger ; and plunge over 
Ablaze against the sun, — 

Doves dead in air, who climb to dare 
The hawks that guide the gun ! 



[13] 



Signals 



The hot wax drips from the flares 
On the scrawled pink forms that litter 
The bench where he sits ; the glitter 
Of stars is framed by the sand-bags atop of 
the dug-out stairs. 
And the lagging watch hands creep ; 
And his cloaked mates murmur in sleep — 
Forms he can wake with a kick — 
And he hears, as he plays with the pressel- 
switch, the strapper receiver click 
On his ear that listens, listens ; 
And the candle-flicker glistens 
On the rounded brass of the switch-board 
where the red wires cluster thick. 

Wires from the earth, from the air ; 

Wires that whisper and chatter 

At night, when the trench-rats patter 

And nibble among the rations and scuttle 
back to their lair ; 
Wires that are never at rest — 
For the linesmen tap them and test, 
And ever they tremble with tone : — 

And he knows from a hundred signals the 
buzzing call of his own, 
The breaks and the vibrant stresses, — 
The Z, and the G, and the Esses, 

[14] 



That call his hand to the answering key and 
his mouth to the microphone. 

For always the laid guns fret 
On the words that his mouth shall utter, 
When rifle and maxim stutter 
And the rockets volley to starward from the 
spurting parapet; 
And always his ear must hark 
To the voices out of the dark, — 
For the whisper over the wire, 
From the bombed and the battered trenches 
where the wounded moan in the mire. 
For a sign to waken the thunder 
Which shatters the night in sunder 
With the flash of the leaping muzzles and the 
beat of battery-fire. 



[15] 



The Observers 

Ere the last light that leaps the night has 
hung and shone and died, 
While yet the breast-high fog of dawn is 
swathed about the plain, 
By hedge and track our slaves go back, the 
waning stars for guide — 
Eyes of our mouths, the mists have cleared, 
the guns would speak again! 

Faint on the ear that strains to hear, their 
orders trickle down 
"Degrees — twelve — left of zero line — cor- 
rector one three eight — 
Three thousand" . . . Shift our trails and lift 
the muzzles that shall drown 
The rifle's idle chatter when our sendings 
detonate. 

Sending or still, these serve our will ; the hid- 
den eyes that mark 
From gutted farm, from laddered tree that 
scans the furrowed slope, 
From coigns of slag whose pit-props sag on 
burrowed ways and dark. 
In open trench where sandbags hold the 
steady periscope. 

[16] 



Waking, they know the instant foe, the bul- 
lets phutting by. 
The blurring lens, the sodden map, the 
wires that leak or break ! 
Sleeping, they dream of shells that scream 
adown a sunless sky — 
And the splinters patter round them in 
their dug-outs as they wake. 

Not theirs, the wet glad bayonet, the red and 
racing hour. 
The rush that clears the bombing-post with 
knife and hand grenade; 
Not theirs the zest when, steel to breast, the 
last survivors cower, — 
Yet can ye hold the ground ye won, save 
these be there to aid ? 

These, that observe the shells far swerve, 
these of the quiet voice. 
That bids "go on," repeats the range, cor- 
rects for fuse or line. . . 
Though dour the task their masters ask, what 
room for thought or choice ? 
This is ours by right of service, heedless 
gift of youthful eyne ! 

[17] 



Careless they give while yet they live; the 
dead we tasked too sore 
Bear witness we were naught begrudged of 
riches or of youth; 
Careless they gave, across their grave our 
calling salvoes roar, 
And those we maimed come back to us in 
proof our dead speak truth ! 



[18] 



Ammunition Column 

/ am only a cog in a giant machine, a link of 

an endless chain: — 
And the rounds are drawn, and the rounds 

are fired, and the empties return 

again; 
Railroad, lorry and limber, battery, column 

and park; 
To the shelf where the set fuse waits the 

breach, from the quxiy where the shells 

embark — 
We have watered and fed, and eaten our 

beef; the long dull day drags by, 
As I sit here watching our "Archibalds" 

strafing an empty sky ; 
Puff and flash on the far off blue round the 

speck one guesses the plane — 
Smoke and spark of the gun-machine that is 

fed by the endless chain. 

I am only a cog in a giant machine, a little 
link in the chain, 

Waiting a word from the wagon-lines that 
the guns are hungry again : — 

Column-wagon to battery-wagon, and bat- 
tery-wagon to gun; 

[19] 



To the loaded' kneeling 'tivixt trail and wheel 

from the shops where the steam lathes 

run — 
Theres' a lone mule braying against the line 

where the mud cakes fetlock deep ! 
There's a lone soul humming a hint of a song 

in the barn where the drivers sleep; 
And I hear the pash of the orderly's horse as 

he canters him down the lane — 
Another cog in the gun-machine, a link in the 

selfsame chain. 

I am only a cog in a giant machine, but a 

vital link in the chain ; 
And the Captain has sent from the wagon-line 

to fill his wagons again ; — 
From wagon-limber to gunpit dump; from 

loader's forearm at breach, 
To the working party that melts away when 

the shrapyiel bullets screech. 
So the restless section pulls out once more in 

column of route from the right, 
At the tail of a blood-red afternoon; so the 

flux of another night 
Bears back the wagons we fill at dawn to the 

sleeping column again. . . 
Cog on cog in the gun-machine, link on link 

in the chain ! 

[20] 



The Voice of the Guns 

We are the guns, and your masters ? Saw ye 

our flashes? 
Heard ye the scream of our shells in the night, 

and the shuddering crashes? 
Saw ye our work by the roadside, the gray 

wounded lying, 
Moaning to God that He made them — the 

maimed and the dying ; 
Husbands or sons. 
Fathers or lovers, we break them! We are 

the guns ! 

We are the guns and ye serve us! Dare ye 
grow weary. 

Steadfast at night-time at noon-time ; or wak- 
ing when dawn winds blow dreary. 

Over the fields and the flats and the reeds of 
the barrier water 

To wait on the hour of our choosing, the min- 
ute decided for slaughter? 
Swift the clock runs ; 

Yea, to the ultimate second. Stand to your 
guns! 

We are the guns and we need you! Here in 

the timbered 
Pits that are screened by the crest and the 

copse where at dusk ye unlimbered, 

[21] 



Pits that one found us — and finding, gave life 

(Did he flinch from the giving?) ; 
Laboured by moonlight when wraith of the 
dead brooded yet o'er the living, 
Ere, with the sun's 
Rising the sorrowful spirit abandoned its 
guns. 

Who but the guns shall avenge him? Strip 

us for action ! 
Load us and lay to the centremost hair of the 

dial-sight's refraction. 
Set your quick hands to our levers to compass 

the sped soul's assoiling; 
Brace your taut limbs to the shock when the 

thrust of the barrel recoiling 
Deafens and stuns! 
Vengeance is ours for our servants: trust 

ye the guns ! 

Least of our bond-slaves or greatest, grudge 

ye the burden ? 
Hard is this service of ours which has only 

our service for guerdon: 
Grow the limbs lax, and unsteady the hands, 

which aforetime we trusted ; 
Flawed, the clear crystal of sight; and the 

clean steel of hardihood rusted ? 

[22] 



Dominant ones. 
Are we not trued serfs and proven — true to 
our guns ? 

Ye are the guns! Are we worthy! Shall not 

these speak for us, 
Out of the woods where the torn trees are 

slashed with the vain bolts that seek 

for US, 
Thunder of batteries firing in unison, swish 

of shell flighting 
Hissing that rushes to silence and breaks to 

the thud of slighting; 
Death that outruns 
Horseman and foot? Are we justified? 

Answer, O guns! 

Yea! by your works are ye justified — toil 
unrelieved ; 

Manifold labours, co-ordinate each to the 
sending achieved; 

Discipline, not of the fact, but the soul, un- 
remitting-, unfeigned ; 

Tortures unholy ( ) maiming, 

known, faced, and disdained; 
Courage that shuns 

Only f oolhardiness ; even by these are ye 
worthy your guns ! 

[23] 



Wherefore — and unto ye only — power hath 

been given ; 
Yea! beyond man, over men, over desolate 

cities and riven; 
Yea! beyond space, over earth and the seas 

and the skies high dominions; 
Yea! beyond time, over Hell and the fiends 

and the Death-angel's pinions ! 
Vigilant ones, 
Loose them, and shatter, and spare not. We 

are the guns. 

Flanders. 
Winter, 1915. 



[24] 



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